The Europeometer™ (2025/26)

[AyeDubbleYoo]

16 minutes ago, Froggy said:

This is why you're all so disappointed all of the time. You were allowed to have the ball and you couldn't do anything with it. All that "pressure" but still less xG than us paints a picture. 

 

Most of our best players were missing and we still scored and shut you out so we absolutely deserved to win. Our 11 that finished the game had an average age of about 14 ffs. 

 

It was desperation stuff from Man Utd, of course it worked so fair play. I wouldn't say allowed to have the ball, I would just say the only way Man Utd could hold onto the match was to defend with their whole team. Semantics maybe.

 

It's hard to break down teams who are all-out defence, that's why they do it. 

[healthyaddiction]

25 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

This is why you're all so disappointed all of the time. You were allowed to have the ball and you couldn't do anything with it. All that "pressure" but still less xG than us paints a picture. 

 

Most of our best players were missing and we still scored and shut you out so we absolutely deserved to win. Our 11 that finished the game had an average age of about 14 ffs. 

That still doesn't make anything I said wrong.

[Froggy]

2 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

It was desperation stuff from Man Utd, of course it worked so fair play. I wouldn't say allowed to have the ball, I would just say the only way Man Utd could hold onto the match was to defend with their whole team. Semantics maybe.

 

It's hard to break down teams who are all-out defence, that's why they do it. 

 

I think us going for the kill with our reserves and youth team would have been asking for trouble. We scored and did what we had to do defensively with a makeshift side, and Dalot should have made it 2-0.

 

I don't see how people think Newcastle should have won the game when they couldn't create a golden chance against a midfield of Jack Fletcher and Ugarte. 

[Lush Vlad]

Was Dalot not offside? Looked well off at the time. But funnily enough, I’ve not

felt the need to go back and watch the ‘highlights’  
 

Tend to agree with you for a change, anyway. You were absolute pony and a decent attacking side would have battered you. We were somehow even worse and could still be playing now and not have scored. 

[gbandit]

2 hours ago, Froggy said:

 

It was one way traffic because we scored and sat back. That was with us missing half our first team as well so of course we would be on the back foot. 

 

Not saying we were great by any stretch, but the better chances still fell to us IMO and I can't understand how people would think you deserved to actually win the game. 

Think it was fairly even in shitness across both sides but overall I think you deserved at least a point. The quality of our chances was largely very poor

[Ginola14]

I think a draw would have been a fair result at OT

 

if penalty was given or Barnes squares it to Wissa etc, fine margins 

 

I don't think MU would feel they were the best team and deserved more  

 

BBC and Livescore stats show Newcastle shaded the xG

 

 xG varies depending where you look so I guess fans choose whichever one best fits their take on the game 

 

MU dug deep and scored a good goal but they were not the better team

 

not saying we were good but we've played a lot worse than that and come away with points

 

it was a plucky underdog victory they should feel proud about  

 

that's just football, happens all the time 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2025 by Ginola14

[Froggy]

44 minutes ago, Ginola14 said:

it was a plucky underdog victory they should feel proud about

 

Buzzing for the kids tbh. Was nice to be able to give them a run out in the league. Won't get away with that against Wolves. 

[buzza]

Yep, they were the Lucky side Who the golden chance fell to. Nothing between the sides tbh which is a telling sign for both teams... phhhhsss

Complete bag of shi* for a Game, we just don't have enough creativity Up front to break a low block backs to the wall defensive display.

 

[Froggy]

10 minutes ago, buzza said:

Yep, they were the Lucky side Who the golden chance fell to. Nothing between the sides tbh which is a telling sign for both teams... phhhhsss

Complete bag of shi* for a Game, we just don't have enough creativity Up front to break a low block backs to the wall defensive display.

 

 

We won without Fernandes, Mbeumo, Amad and De Ligt. 

 

We beat a side that has won five of the last six against us, and kept a clean sheet without really conceding a high quality chance. 

 

There's no real negatives here for us as much as people are trying to dress it up that way. 

[KingArthur]

7 hours ago, Froggy said:

 

It was one way traffic because we scored and sat back. That was with us missing half our first team as well so of course we would be on the back foot. 

 

Not saying we were great by any stretch, but the better chances still fell to us IMO and I can't understand how people would think you deserved to actually win the game. 

Well, the 2 chances you had 2nd half (Dalot and Sesko most likely you mean) were offsides, so I would say Hall's crossbar was the closest to a goal. Dorgu's goal is one in a million.

 

But that is the thing. I have never seen Manchester United so much on the backfoot against Newcastle, ever. It has been all 25 years of me watching Newcastle the other way around: Newcastle playing time and parking the bus 6-3-1. It really tells a lot about the state of your club and current team. Missing few players yes, but still. I think it was very even game with a wonder goal that decided it.

And at least few sites seem to put xG in our favour, if that tells anything. 

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2025 by KingArthur

[Ginola14]

were Dalot and Sesko chances both offside? too painful to watch back

 

is Sesko the next Hoijland?

[Froggy]

35 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

Well, the 2 chances you had 2nd half (Dalot and Sesko most likely you mean) were offsides, so I would say Hall's crossbar was the closest to a goal. Dorgu's goal is one in a million.

 

But that is the thing. I have never seen Manchester United so much on the backfoot against Newcastle, ever. It has been all 25 years of me watching Newcastle the other way around: Newcastle playing time and parking the bus 6-3-1. It really tells a lot about the state of your club and current team. Missing few players yes, but still. I think it was very even game with a wonder goal that decided it.

And at least few sites seem to put xG in our favour, if that tells anything. 

 

This is the problem with recency bias. You're saying you've never seen us more on the backfoot against you, but it literally happened in the 0-2 last season. The first half in that game you dominated because you actually created chances, unlike this game. That was a far better performance. 

 

I don't think Dalot or Sesko were offside either, and calling Hall's speculative 25 yard effort a chance is generous despite how good of a strike it was. 

 

Can we not say "missing a few players" as well please? It was pretty much all of our best players. 

 

Again, this game shows nothing negative about the "current state" of our club. If anything it shows a bit of resilience that wasn't there before. A team this depleted would have been spanked last season. 

[KingArthur]

29 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

This is the problem with recency bias. You're saying you've never seen us more on the backfoot against you, but it literally happened in the 0-2 last season. The first half in that game you dominated because you actually created chances, unlike this game. That was a far better performance. 

 

I don't think Dalot or Sesko were offside either, and calling Hall's speculative 25 yard effort a chance is generous despite how good of a strike it was. 

 

Can we not say "missing a few players" as well please? It was pretty much all of our best players. 

 

Again, this game shows nothing negative about the "current state" of our club. If anything it shows a bit of resilience that wasn't there before. A team this depleted would have been spanked last season. 

 

I checked it again: Dalot is quite clearly offside and his chance was 0,35xG, a bit over 1/3 of what you created. Sesko was not, it was 0,10. (According to Understat)

Well well, now you are twisting my words.  If you look the stats from that game, they are nowhere near as bad as this one. Yes, you got overrun totally at the start because of Amorim's awful tactics,  but it was not 6-3-1 park the bus game mate. I have never seen Newcastle go to OT and pin you guys to their own box so totally for 40 minutes or something. It looked like Steve Bruce's Manchester United in the second half. That is something I have never seen, even when we have been our best under Howe and you worst under Amorim, it has not looked like that. (btw, in that game you had your "best players" in defence)

And now you have to take into account that ManU was a laughing stock then: now fans and even some pundits are saying how ManU are back and challenging top4. Although Carragher put it well saying that the bar has been put so low, you cannot go under it.

Newcastle was missing what, 5-6 defenders and playing a 19-year-old midfielder at right back. 

The reaction to that game totally tells a lot. You cannot keep spending 200 million a season and keep saying it is good thing to scrape wins over Newcastle, whose away form is terrible, or Crystal Palace. These are teams you should be expecting to beat with the money you spend on your team. The fact that ManU fans praise these things tells a lot of the current state of the club. (I can also put some lauging emojis here, put they don't make my argument any better, so I give it a pass)

 

 

Edited December 29, 2025 by KingArthur

[TRon]

3 hours ago, Froggy said:

 

We won without Fernandes, Mbeumo, Amad and De Ligt. 

 

We beat a side that has won five of the last six against us, and kept a clean sheet without really conceding a high quality chance. 

 

There's no real negatives here for us as much as people are trying to dress it up that way. 

 

 

I agree. I don't really know why anyone is bothering to defend Newcastle here. It was an awful performance, and if we couldn't get something against Man U reserves, then we didn't deserve it. 

[KingArthur]

1 minute ago, TRon said:

 

 

I agree. I don't really know why anyone is bothering to defend Newcastle here. It was an awful performance, and if we couldn't get something against Man U reserves, then we didn't deserve it. 

I don't think we deserved anything more than perhaps a draw. It was a poor game and first goal was always going to decide that. Put I also think ManU were very poor, as was Newcastle.

[Froggy]

2 hours ago, KingArthur said:

These are teams you should be expecting to beat with the money you spend on your team

 

And we did.

[AngelofTheFourth]

I just realised for us to match last seasons tally we would have to be on an even better form than man city have this season from now until to final game.

[KingArthur]

5 hours ago, Froggy said:

 

And we did.

With a shite performance. Aaah, whatever. 

[Erikse]

18 hours ago, healthyaddiction said:

No team chooses to have that little possession and be under that much pressure. 

 

We didn't deserve to win it but neither did you.

 

What? Most bottom teams vs top teams in general? Us vs PSG when they scored at 98 from that handball? Actually, we've sat deep many times and come under a lot of pressure. We did that in most games where we took the lead at the start of the season. Heck, even Liverpool sat deep and invited pressure against a 9 man Spurs. Was even worse when they had 10 men. Why are we pretending like this isn't a thing in football after last game?

 

 

Edited December 30, 2025 by Erikse

[Mattoon]

I find it amusing we have several pages of arguing who was less crap in a game of two bald men fighting over a comb, neither team came out of that game with any kind of self respect, it was honking. It's like bragging you won the penis measuring competition by a nanometer, best left in the doldrums of history.

[KingArthur]

50 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

What? Most bottom teams vs top teams in general? Us vs PSG when they scored at 98 from that handball? Actually, we've sat deep many times and come under a lot of pressure. We did that in most games where we took the lead at the start of the season. Heck, even Liverpool sat deep and invited pressure against a 9 man Spurs. Was even worse when they had 10 men. Why are we pretending like this isn't a thing in football after last game?

 

 

 

I think it is a bit different when you don't even try to counter and the bus is there for half an hour or more. Very rarely you see top teams sit so deep. Liverpool were in full panic mode.

[Froggy]

1 hour ago, KingArthur said:

With a shite performance. Aaah, whatever. 

 

I think the reserves did well personally.

[Erikse]

31 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

I think it is a bit different when you don't even try to counter and the bus is there for half an hour or more. Very rarely you see top teams sit so deep. Liverpool were in full panic mode.

 

They did counter when they got the opportunity, but some of their players like Dorgu were gassed, and they didn't have much quality up top with all the missing players. We sat this deep against Brentford after going 1-0 up in the 27th minute, and didn't create anything after that.

 

They guy I replied to claimed that no team ever sits this deep on purpose. That includes Southampton against Man City in that 0-0 draw last season when Ruben Dias were complaining that only 1 team tried to win. According to this claim it wasn't a deliberate strategy from Southampton, as they wanted to have the ball and attack, it just turned out that way.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2025 by Erikse

[ExiledGeordie]

Can still get Europa league place but need to start sorting our shit out quickly and try and find some consistency. A couple new signings in Jan would certainly help as would Wissa starting to bang the goals in.

[KingArthur]

31 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

I think the reserves did well personally.

Your "reserves" cost more than Newcastle XI most likely. Wages added definitely.